quicko: arse

I'd heard Australians use "arse" for "ass," but had somehow ass...umed they were being silly or intentionally irritating or something.  It only recently occurred to me that it actually is their word and an "ass" in Australia is, really, just a donkey.  At least in the same way a thong is just a piece of footwear.

quicko: to u or not to u

It was recently pointed out to me that, while there are many words that require a superfluous "u" in British and Australian English (colour, honour, favourite, etc.), there is at least one (and probably various other) notable exception that does not:  author.  Why is it not authour here?

quicko: sceptical

I am skeptical of the Australian spelling of sceptical.

quicko: mold

Spelling issue here:  mold vs. mould.

quicko: spelling lesson

Pyjamas, not pajamas, in Australia.  Or, as the English teachers say, p-schwa-jamas.

quicko: the singular case of the wandering s

It seems that, while the Australians are clearly missing the second s in "sports," they take it upon themselves to reinsert it into the vocabulary at "maths."

Behold, I have found the wandering s!  The game's afoot!

quicko: practice makes perfect

Australians are weird about practice.  They spell it alternate ways.  Practise when it's a noun; practice when it's a verb.  Or maybe it's the other way round.  I really don't know.  I can't keep track.  50-50 says I'm right.

divided by a common you-know-what

There’s just way too much linguistic intrigue here not to mention some of it. Obviously you’ve got the accent. It’s closer to British than American, but it’s definitely its own entity and colors everything you hear. A few particular oddities in terms of pronunciation: cafe, aluminum, weekend, massage, fillet, ballet, Isaiah, oregano and, of all things, pronunciation. Not sure who’s responsible for that.

Spelling, of course, is also obvious to the linguist in the midst, and, again, generally follows British English, what with its excessive u and omnipresent s for z, which, incidentally, they call "zed." Imagine that – they’re actually so fond of the letter they name it. Whoever said Australians weren’t adorable?

If Austalians can’t think of a creative enough way to spell a word, they have an ingenious solution: change it. Thus, we get tons of new vocabulary words, such as star jumps for jumping jacks, lollies for candy, sticking plasters for Band-Aids, sheila for girl and thongs for flip flops.

Shortening words is also a national pastime, ranking somewhere shy of beer, but perhaps a bit above rugby. Generally it’s just nouns that bite the linguistic dust, getting either an –ie (brekkie. mozzies, Woolie’s, sunnies), an –o (arvo, journo, muso, doco, veggo), –er (swimmers, boarders, Mackers) or sometimes something completely random (brolly, trakkie daks).

There’s also phrases that are distinctly Australian and may or may not have direct American translations. "G’day," for instance, is like hello, but not exactly. You’ll understand it, but be completely unable to reproduce it.

I’ve had slightly better luck with the omnipresent "how ya going?" Using the verb "go" with the reckless abandon Australians do had never crossed my mind, but after a few months I’m finding that it really does roll off the tongue a bit more eptly than you’d think. Try it yourself and tell me how you go.

Then there’s "to sus out," as in to find something out, like if he/she/it is good/bad/ugly. I’ve heard it called a derivative of "to source out," which was supposed to explain things to me, but being as I’d never heard of sourcing (or is it sourceing?) anything either, that didn’t really help. It’s used as in, "why don’t you go and sus out that restaurant?" or "I’ll sus him out for you." As a side note, citing bibliographic sources is also called sourcing, not citing.

Although you could probably get by with "intense" or "hard-core" here, if you want to be Australian about it you go "full-on." The movie was full-on, the day of team building activities was full-on, the encounter with the great white shark was really full-on.

There’s also a handful of words that we use and understand, but just don’t feel the need to drag into every other sentence. "Heaps" is one of these. Arguably we use "lots" to the same level of excess, but, hey, it never bothered me. A word, though, that for some reason just grates my nerves this side of the Pacific is "venue." I don’t know why, but everything has to happen at a venue. Not a restaurant, a conference center, a hotel, a reception hall, a studio, a theater or even, good gracious, a place, but a venue. Ooh la la.

"Good on ya" is one of the quintessentially Australian expressions that I could never pull off and sound natural about it. It’s used similarly to "good for you," and means something akin to "good job," but half the time it’s sarcastic. Good luck with it, and good on you if can get it right.

Oddly enough, "reckon" is not just restricted to rednecks. Lots of people here use it lots. "Whaddaya reckon?" or "I reckon if we meet at 6 we’ll beat the crowd" or "Do you reckon the American can understand us?"

Another Australian oddity is "keen (on)." It’s to like something, or want to do something, and doesn’t just have to do with being intellectually zippy. "A group of us are going out for Thai. You keen?" or "So, who’s keen for bowling?" or "I’m keen to get started."

Of course, there’s also the standard Australism "mate." Used frequently by some and hardly ever by others, it keeps people on the same plane. If you’re not Australian, though, you definitely shouldn’t try it in public.

On a more grammatical note, Australians, like the Brits, have a very interesting reverse-gerund sort of way of changing nouns into verbs. Thus, we get all sorts of expressions like "having a think," "having a sleep," "having a browse" or "having a surf." You can figure out what they mean, but again, would rarely produce something similar. (Although "taking a nap" springs to mind as an exception.)

They also do very odd things with prepositions here. Most notably, things are located in streets instead of on them. That store’s in York Street, he works in George Street, she lives in Liverpool Street.

There’s a few differences in punctuation, but to save me from appearing entirely pedantic, I think I’ll skip them for now. Full stop.